Yahoo's board of directors has reportedly okayed a $1.1 billion purchase of the popular blogging site Tumblr, approving Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's boldest move to date in her efforts to revitalize the struggling Internet giant.

The six-year-old Tumblr service has little revenue but a growing audience of young Internet users, which could help Yahoo in what its own executives have described as a quest to regain the company's "cool" factor.

There were no competing bids for the New York-based Tumblr, according to news reports Sunday. A Yahoo spokeswoman would not confirm the acquisition, but the board's vote was reported by the All Things D technology blog and the New York Times, citing unnamed sources familiar with the deal.

Terms of the deal call for Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp to remain with the company for at least four years, while continuing to run Tumblr as a quasi-independent unit within Yahoo, according to reports. There was no word on whether Karp or his 175 employees will relocate to Silicon Valley.

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The $1.1 billion acquisition price is a premium for Tumblr, which reportedly was valued last year at around $800 million, based on its most recent round of venture funding. The company has raised a total of $175 million from investors to date.

Tumbler, which provides a free blogging platform for its estimated 117 million users, only recently began showing ads and reportedly had just $13 million in revenue last year. Analysts say it has potential to show more ads on its platform and could be an attractive addition to Yahoo's advertising service, since many of its users fall in the coveted 18-to-29-year-old age group.

Mayer has been working to re-energize Yahoo since she was recruited from her job as a Google (GOOG) executive last year. While Yahoo is still one of the world's most-visited Internet portals, it has been steadily losing advertising business to Google, Facebook and other sites in recent years.

In her quest to turn things around, Mayer has overseen several smaller acquisitions of start-ups focused on mobile technology. But the Tumblr deal, if finalized, would be her biggest move at Yahoo to date.

Tumbler could also help Yahoo expand into the social media world, since the popular blogging service has features that let users follow other blogs and get updates online. Yahoo, in turn, could help Tumblr pursue more growth. But analysts warn that Tumblr's potential as an advertising platform is not yet clear, and its potential contributions to Yahoo remain to be seen.